


Promises for the Future

by langsdelijn



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: First Meetings, Friendship at first sight, Gen, baby brocedes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 16:14:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5011288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/langsdelijn/pseuds/langsdelijn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lewis and Nico meet for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises for the Future

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [spartanlady16](http://spartanlady16.tumblr.com/) for beta services and reassurance.

Lewis had heard of Nico Rosberg, of course. He was Keke Rosberg’s son, which earned him significant cool points from Lewis’ point of view at least, and was known as the one to beat here, which made him very interesting indeed and which Lewis was, incidentally, here to do. Nico had probably not heard of Lewis Hamilton, or at least Lewis didn’t think so, but that was okay, because he would soon. Lewis was planning to make an impression.

What Lewis did not know was what Nico actually looked like. He had heard some things of dubious veracity, that he was aloof and unapproachable not to say arrogant, that he had wavy blond hair, blue eyes, a mischievous smile that promised all the trouble he supposedly was, that he was pretty (and this was not a compliment), but to honest Lewis had always had a vague impression of him as a miniature version of his father, moustache included.

And this was how it came to be that Lewis had been chatting with the famous Nico Rosberg for a good few minutes without knowing it. ‘I’m Nico, by the way,’ Nico said in his good but accented English (‘And you don’t think you have an accent?’ he’d scoffed when Lewis had complimented him on it. Lewis had shrugged and said that, no, he just spoke English, actually. Nico had rolled his eyes. ‘Actually, everyone has an accent,’ he’d said sagely. Lewis had conceded the point but he privately remained unconvinced, because there were accents, and there were accents).

Lewis stared. Then he realised he was staring and stopped it. ‘Nico Rosberg?’ he asked, surprised, though this was continental Europe and maybe there were a million Nicos just running around having weird versions of familiar names here, who knew.

Nico—indeed the Nico Rosberg—nodded.

‘Oh, wow, man, I had no idea,’ Lewis said. He tried not to stare again but he lost the inner struggle with his curiosity. Nico was just taller than he was (very annoying, especially when he learned he was nearly half a year younger, too), his hair was a darker blond than the golden tales spun of it, and it might be wavy if it was grown out but for now it fanned out in loose fluffy sickles, he kept frowning because he was facing the sun and stubbornly refused to move so he would not be, and the supposedly-mischievous smile had not been in evidence yet. Lewis attempted, a second time, to force himself to stop staring at him. If anything else, it was impolite.

Nico frowned a little more deeply. ‘Wait, you really didn’t know?’ he asked. He paused. Lewis could practically see him rewind that in his mind and come to an unfavourable assessment of his own wording, so he expected the nervously-delivered follow-up. ‘Uh, I mean, you know…,’ Nico faltered. ‘I didn’t mean—I—that’s not usually—’

Lewis decided it was time to take pity and held up a hand. Nico stopped babbling. ‘I know what you meant, alright, it’s fine,’ Lewis said.

‘Oh, okay,’ Nico said, on a sigh of relief. He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Oh,’ he said, as if he’d suddenly realised something, ‘I haven’t even asked your name!’

That was okay, really, Lewis hadn’t volunteered it yet, either. ‘I’m Lewis,’ he said, extending a hand because he was an expert on formal introductions and this was how you made them, introductions through autograph books and promises for nine years in the future were for ten-year-olds and he was past that now at twelve, thank you very much. ‘Hamilton,’ he added, after a moment’s consideration.

‘Oh,’ Nico said. They shook hands (it was very professional; any TV personality could have learned something from it). ‘I think I heard my dad talking about you on the phone to someone, then.’

‘Oh,’ Lewis echoed. He tried not to ask, because he wasn’t sure he’d want to know. ‘What’d he say about me?’

Nico made a vague gesture. Lewis supposed it expressed a kind of uncertainty about the specifics. ‘He said he heard you were very good and if you came here, I’d have my hands full. You know’—he hesitated—‘if I wanted to, um, beat you.’ He mumbled that last bit with an embarrassed smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

‘Well.’ Lewis shrugged. It seemed a bit presumptuous to tell Nico that he, in fact, was here to beat him but that he welcomed the challenge, and he didn’t know what else to say. ‘I mean…’

‘I do,’ Nico continued, ‘want to beat you, by the way. I want to beat everyone,’ he clarified after another pause in which he unnecessarily puzzled over his words. 

‘Oh, yeah, me too,’ Lewis agreed. After all there was only one top step of the podium and there were only so many seats in Formula 1, whether or not Ron Dennis had since moved forward the autograph-book-based plans for his future by seven years and a seat at McLaren had tentatively been reserved for him somewhere next century. If he wanted to get there, he’d have to be the best. And to be the best, he’d have to beat all the other hopefuls who mistakenly thought they were the best here and in every category to come. And, because he couldn’t resist, he added, ‘But especially you, though.’

‘Why?’

Lewis winked at him. ‘I have to be better than the best, don’t I?’

Nico blinked. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘okay.’ He nodded. ‘I guess that makes sense.’

‘Yes?’ Lewis tried to work out why it wouldn’t make sense since it seemed eminently logical from where he was standing.

A few moments passed as Nico considered this. He finally gave up on squinting into the sun unaided and brought his right hand up to shield his eyes (Lewis judged them to be dark blue, maybe grey now that they were open far enough to reliably tell colour). ‘Well…,’ he began, then stopped himself again and messed with his hair with his free hand. Lewis guessed that was a nervous tic of his and had to suppress the urge to mirror the movement himself. ‘I mean, it doesn’t really happen that often that someone doesn’t care who my dad is and—’

Lewis interrupted him there and he thought he might even have managed not to yell. ‘What? Your dad is a world champion, man, that is massively cool! Of course I care!’

‘You didn’t even know who I was when you started talking to me,’ Nico protested, which was madness and had nothing to do with anything, really.

‘So?’

‘You weren’t talking to me because of who my dad was,’ he explained.

‘And that doesn’t happen often?’ Lewis asked. He knew a thing or two about people not talking to you because of who your dad was but not so much the reverse. It must also happen, he supposed, and it seemed almost as lonely.

Nico shrugged miserably. ‘Not really, no. A lot of people don’t bother to talk to me either way, though.’

‘Yeah, I hear that,’ Lewis found himself admitting. 

He watched Nico think about asking why and then stop himself when he realised. Nico ran both hands through his hair this time. ‘You do that a lot,’ Lewis noted, hoping to change the subject. 

‘What?’

Lewis mimicked the patterns Nico’s hands kept tracing across the top of his head. ‘You’re always touching your hair,’ he said. 

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, you do it all the time.’ He was doing it right now, in fact. Nico’s free hand was still tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck. ‘You’re doing it now.’

‘Oh.’ Nico didn’t seem to have noticed what he was doing until he’d been told. He lowered his arm and looked at it as if it had been acting of its own accord. He visibly went back into self-analysis mode.

‘I think you think too much,’ Lewis blurted out. ‘I mean,’ he amended, because he did realise that was a strange (one might even say daft) way to put it, ‘you worry about all these things you said, and this hair thing, and all the time I can as good as see your mind whirring away with worry and it’s just—’

And it was probably a good thing that Nico interrupted him there, because now it was Lewis who was beginning to babble. ‘Sorry?’ 

‘Huh?’

‘Uh, that last what you said’—his face scrunched up in concentration—‘like, “whirring with… something,” what does that mean? You were speaking so fast, and….’ Nico trailed off with an apologetic gesture.

‘Oh, sorry,’ Lewis said. He was finding it difficult to remember that Nico was not actually speaking in his own language, despite his obvious foreign accent. So there followed a brief detour wherein Lewis introduced Nico to a new onomatopoeia and after that they got side-tracked on that topic for a while and Lewis learned how to make car and general machine noises in German and in French. ‘No Finnish?’

‘I don’t speak Finnish,’ Nico said, which surprised Lewis, what with his famous Finnish father and all.

‘Why not?’

‘My dad never taught me,’ Nico said. (Well, actually, he said “learned”, paused and did his internal rewind-rerun thing and had corrected himself to “taught” before Lewis had decided if he should correct him or not, but what were a few false friends between friends? Nico pointed out that they could hardly be called friends, having met each other less than an hour ago today, but seemed mollified when Lewis dismissed that as an insignificant detail.) 

‘Why not?’ Lewis asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Nico said. ‘He just didn’t.’

Lewis pondered if it was impolite to ask him if he missed it somehow, if that made sense. Then he wondered if that did make sense and decided it probably didn’t. In the end, he declined to ask. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘So…’ he wanted to ask what they spoke at home, then, and with his family on his dad’s side for that matter, but maybe that was rude, too.

‘What?’

‘You and your dad…’ He trailed off when his suspicion that this may, in fact, be rude after all overrode his curiosity.

Nico guessed what he meant, though, so Lewis still got to have his question answered. ‘Oh, German,’ Nico said offhandedly. 

Lewis jokingly suggested that it might be better that way, else Nico may not be able to keep it all straight in his head, all those different languages jumbling around together German and French and English and Finnish and who knew what else.

‘It really doesn’t work like that,’ Nico said. But he grinned brightly as he said that and his grin made his nose scrunch up cutely and his eyes sparkle and that was a great sight so it was all worth it. 

Lewis pressed for a demonstration. Nico theatrically rolled his eyes which looked funny because he was still using his hand as a makeshift sun visor (though he’d since switched hands, twice). ‘It’s easy,’ he said, ‘you just switch over, like this,’ and then—presumably, though Lewis wouldn’t know—went on to say the same thing in German and French and, surprisingly and a little less confidently, in what Lewis thought was Italian.

‘Italian, too, huh?’

‘A little,’ Nico confirmed. ‘I’m still learning. We are in Italy, after all.’ And because he was apparently a show-off when he was comfortable, he repeated that in three more languages. Lewis could tell because even he could recognise the sound of “Italy” in several different languages. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘Me?’ Lewis asked. ‘Oh, no, not at all.’

Nico said something in (probably) Italian again. Lewis worked out from the context and his intonation that it was “why not” and shrugged. He had not imagined he would end this afternoon discussing a whole lot of random things like multilingualism with Nico Rosberg but he was enjoying doing it nonetheless. ‘I’m not any good at that stuff,’ he said, which was true.

‘Not even in school?’

‘Nah.’ 

‘Oh.’ Nico brightened. ‘I could teach you, if you want.’

‘I’ll pass,’ Lewis said. 

Nico countered with the opinion that that was his loss, to which Lewis happily agreed. And then Nico asked how they’d got to talking about this again.

‘You didn’t know what “whirr” meant,’ Lewis reminded him.

‘I worried too much, you said.’

Lewis nodded. Nico really did. Lewis had seen him do it at least half a dozen times in the short time he’d known him and over a bunch of innocuous if at times slightly oddly-phrased things. ‘You do,’ Lewis said.

Nico’s puzzled frown came back. ‘Why do you say that?’ 

‘Wait, seriously?’ Nico nodded. ‘You said you were surprised I hadn’t known who your dad was and then you decided you had to clarify because…’—Lewis paused to try and reason out what had possessed Nico—‘because’—he couldn’t think of anything so he gave up and tried a different approach—‘it’s like you want to say things perfectly and then you panic when they aren’t even though what you said was fine.’ Yeah, he decided, that sounded about right. 

‘I have to think about what I say,’ Nico protested. ‘If I don’t, I—’ he stopped himself. ‘You know,’ he said. ‘I just say the first thing I think of and then I… you know,’ he repeated with a helpless shrug.

Lewis assured him that everyone said something silly at one time or another so who cared if and when Nico did.

‘I do,’ Nico said. Lewis gave up. There was obviously no helping him.

Nico finally gave up his fight against the sun, after much longer than Lewis could have been bothered with, and sat down. Lewis followed his lead, and they sat shoulder-to-shoulder against the sun-warmed wall, heads turned towards each other conspiratorially, their conversation meandering loosely to and fro. 

Lewis learned Nico played tennis and loved football, as all right-thinking people should, but he supported Bayern Munich (‘Bayern München,’ Nico insisted archly and laughed at his attempts to pronounce that, which even Lewis himself could tell were miserable because seriously, what even was that sound, but that only made Nico laugh harder) rather than AS Monaco, and that he supported Germany over Finland, which he denied was for reasons of pragmatism—but when Lewis quizzed him on Finnish footballers he didn’t get very far past Jari Litmanen (and that was basically cheating) so Lewis declared him a glory-hunting liar and a guilty Nico didn’t protest overly much.

He told Nico about racing remote controlled cars and getting on TV for it, about having to take karate. About Ron and his parents and a hundred other random things that were not altogether very interesting but that Nico seemed to like hearing anyway. 

Lewis somehow ended up asking if Nico had a middle name (he did and it was Erik and so was his father’s), though he forgot his reasons for wanting to know immediately on asking, so it had probably been an embarrassing brainwave that was better off lost to this miscommunication between his short- and long-term memory. Of course, Nico then demanded to know his, so Lewis told him. ‘Is that really your full name?’ Nico asked. Lewis confirmed that it was. ‘Why?’ Nico asked, and Lewis counter-asked why, why? and what exactly was wrong with his name. ‘It’s really… long,’ Nico said, but could not be convinced to reveal what he meant by that.

And that led, through a long and intense discussion about videogames, to films and music and somehow back onto sports and the World Cup next year. Nico claimed Germany was going to win. Lewis said that was definitely not going to happen. Nico asked if he thought England were, then. Lewis did not think so but he supposed he was sort of meant not to badmouth the side, and especially not this far in advance, so he shrugged and said maybe. Nico asked if it was a yes maybe or a no maybe. Lewis admitted it was a plain no. Nico accused him of having too little faith in his team but that was easy for him to say, and Lewis told him so. 

‘I think we’ve been left here,’ Nico light-heartedly mused some time later. 

Lewis looked up and noticed that, indeed, there was hardly anyone around anymore, and certainly neither of their fathers was. ‘Maybe they forgot about us,’ he suggested. 

‘Hmm,’ Nico said, ‘yeah.’ He got up and dusted off the wrong side of his trousers, then held out a hand to help Lewis up. ‘Come on.’

‘Come on where?’

Nico grinned. He presented his hand more emphatically. Lewis took it and let Nico pull him to his feet. ‘You’ll see,’ Nico promised. Lewis surmised that this was, at long last, the fabled troublemaker he had been warned of presenting himself.

‘I want to know now,’ Lewis said. He wanted to know how much trouble it could land him in before he decided if he wanted anything to do with this plan or not.

‘Oh, fine.’ Nico “subtly” communicated through his tone and body language that he thought Lewis was being a spoilsport about this and that he should just let Nico surprise him but nevertheless Nico would magnanimously share because he was just that nice that he couldn’t help it. ‘If you climb the roof over here,’ he explained with a vague motion at the building and roof in question, the wall of which looked like it could be scaled relatively easily even without using the sturdy trellis that helped the… plant—he was hardly a botanical expert; it was green, had stems and leaves and presumably would flower in the summer and he had not the faintest idea what it was called—there grow up against the wall, ‘you can spy on the main office—it’s those windows over there, see? I think my dad and maybe yours too are in there. We could listen in from up there.’

Lewis thought about it. It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do instead.

‘Come on, now,’ Nico whined, though Lewis had not actually agreed to go yet. He set off and Lewis let himself be pulled along. Nico was still holding his hand and Lewis didn’t think he had noticed. He wondered if he should say something about that for propriety’s sake or something but he found he didn’t actually want to; it was nice and he liked it.

A few steps later Nico realised what he was doing and let go of him with a mumbled ‘Oh, sorry.’ He touched his hand to his hair again, which he’d not done in a while. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s okay,’ Lewis said, because he didn’t think he could very well tell him to go back to holding his hand, please even though he kind of wanted to.

‘Oh,’ Nico said again, then he absently put the offending hand into his pocket. ‘Um, anyway.’ He gestured at the wall with his other hand as if they were coming up on their destination after a grand adventure instead of heading a few dozen metres to the right during which time it had been in full view the entire time because it was, well, a wall. ‘Here we are.’

‘Yes,’ Lewis teased, reaching out to touch the wall to demonstrate its rather concrete presence, ‘I can see that.’

Nico gave him a friendly elbow but he laughed as he did it. ‘Shut up and climb,’ he commanded, getting in position against the wall and lowering his hands.

‘We can just climb the trellis,’ Lewis pointed out. It was literally two steps to their left and from up close it looked like it would definitely be able to hold the weight of two twelve-year-olds.

‘No, we have to do this properly.’ Nico said it as if there were a code of conduct to follow in the climbing of buildings you weren’t supposed to climb. ‘Come on!’

Lewis cast a look at the nice, practically ladder-like trellis and sighed. He put his hands on Nico’s shoulders and stepped into his hands. Nico launched him up and Lewis grabbed for the edge and hauled himself up on it.

He looked back down where Nico was watching him expectantly. ‘You can’t jump that high,’ Lewis said dubiously.

Nico put up a hand demandingly and Lewis obediently reached down though he was pretty convinced it wouldn’t work. Because even if Nico could jump that high, he was probably too heavy for Lewis to pull up. Maybe Nico would have to take the trellis anyway and it would be funny because he was so adamant about avoiding it. ‘Come on, then,’ Lewis said.

As it turned out Nico could jump high enough to reach but it took a few tries to get it right—and once Lewis just plain couldn’t hold him—but in the end they managed. Nico dropped down beside him and Lewis sat back up. He noticed Nico’s cheeks were flushed and grinned. ‘We really could have just gone up the trellis.’ 

‘You have no imagination,’ Nico despaired.

Lewis shrugged. ‘I’m just being practical. I thought you Germans liked practicality?’

‘It was more fun this way,’ Nico said and Lewis had to admit Nico wasn’t exactly wrong about that but neither was he, really. 

Nico got to his feet and made a show of brushing off the dirt from his legs. ‘Now come on, let’s find out what they’re talking about in there.’ 

Lewis got up too and followed him to the windows. They were too high up for them to be able to see through unaided and, as he learned after an unsuccessful attempt, improperly positioned for jumping up to look to have any effect. ‘Help me up so I can take a look,’ Nico said.

‘You’re really bossy,’ Lewis mentioned. But he was curious now, and he didn’t honestly care that much about Nico’s bossiness, so he helped him up. ‘I’m not sure I like it,’ he added—and that was not entirely true because at least the view was interesting and he did like it. But Nico definitely did not need to know that. 

Nico hmmed so Lewis guessed he wasn’t listening. ‘I can’t see… oh,’ he said, disappointed, ‘there’s no one in there.’

Lewis dropped him back down and they looked at each other. ‘Sorry,’ Nico said, as if it mattered.

‘Do you do this often?’ Lewis asked. ‘You know, climb up and eavesdrop?’

‘I do it sometimes. But usually I know my dad’s in there. Want to get back down?’

Lewis thought about it. ‘Nah,’ he decided. ‘I can wait. So do they ever say anything interesting?’

‘Not really, I suppose. It’s mostly business.’ 

‘Oh.’ 

Lewis tried to think of something to say since the conversation seemed to be running out of steam again. ‘I can’t believe we met like an hour ago and you’ve convinced me to climb a roof to spy on an empty room,’ he said, which was the first thing to come to mind. 

‘Actually,’ Nico said, with a look at his watch to confirm, ‘we have known each other for an hour and a half.’

‘Oh, wow, I changed my mind. What I can’t believe is you know that.’ 

‘Well, that’s not very nice,’ Nico sniffed haughtily. ‘Is it?’

And try as he might, Lewis could not resist the fit of giggles that rose up at the way he said it. Nico was studying him and Lewis watched him succumb to it too and soon both of them were leaning into each other, helplessly laughing together on top of some roof somewhere.

‘I like you,’ Lewis said when he could breathe normally enough again to speak, which he’d not meant to say and certainly not like that. He tried to determine if it would be worse to let the words stand as they were or to correct himself and draw attention to what he’d just said, and how. ‘I think you’re pretty cool,’ he added in the hopes that would make it less weird.

But he realised he’d worried unnecessarily because Nico, whose shoulders were still shocking with laughter, either didn’t care if his wording was off or hadn’t known there was something wrong with it in the first place. ‘You do?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ Lewis hedged—because that was what you did, alright—but then he thought about it and decided that he did even though he could have possibly phrased it to sound less… well, anyway, best not to continue dwelling on that. ‘I mean, yeah, I guess?’ And with that, it was evidently time to give up on trying to improve his phrasing since it didn’t seem to be getting any better. 

‘Are you sure?’

Nico smiled innocently when Lewis looked at him to see if that had been a serious question. And he supposed it was fair enough; he had been edging toward rambling a bit there. But he still elbowed Nico in the ribs for it. ‘I do. It’s really easy to talk to you,’ he admitted with a tentative little smile of his own.

‘You too,’ Nico said.

‘Yeah,’ Lewis concluded absently. He wondered if he should ask and in the end his curiosity won out. ‘So, um, what’s it like?’

‘Huh?’ Nico blinked. ‘What’s what like?’

‘You know.’ Lewis shrugged. He didn’t want to seem overly curious or too invested in the details of Nico’s life—or whatever; it wasn’t as if he’d never met someone rich and famous before and been cool and collected about it because for one he’d once told Ron Dennis to his face he wanted to drive one of his cars in the future, please, but this was different, although he could not articulate why—but honestly he was dying to know what it was like to live life with a world champion dad. ‘You know,’ he said again, ‘to have—I mean, with your dad, right? It must be brilliant!’

He was babbling, again, so he forced himself to stop (and to look down, because he could feel the warmth of blood crawling up his cheeks in embarrassment, which if he could help it Nico was not to ever find out about). ‘I mean….’ He sighed. ‘Sorry.’ 

‘I don’t know, really,’ Nico said after a long pause. Lewis supposed Nico had used this time to consider the question but he couldn’t be sure because his flush had still not gone down and he was committed to not further embarrassing himself this time. ‘It’s kind of just my life?’

Lewis wanted to protest this, since surely a more inadequate description of life—with… with money, fame, and (oh, yes, not to forget) a father who’d won the world drivers’ championship in Formula 1, in Monaco of all places—had rarely been given, but he couldn’t find the words. He chanced an incredulous look sideways. ‘But…’ 

Nico studied him and Lewis tried to school his features into something neutral instead of star-struck and starry-eyed. ‘I guess I’m too used to it,’ Nico said eventually. ‘Sorry.’

It was a pointless apology and wondering about it distracted Lewis from attempting a continuation of his interrogation. ‘Why are you apologising?’

‘Um. I guess because—well, you wanted to know—and I, you know…’

Lewis took Nico by the wrist before he could run his hand through his hair again. (It was the same hand he’d held earlier but he tried not to think that too much of how it could be that he knew that.) Nico looked on in confusion and sheepishly lowered his arm again. 

Lewis hurriedly let go.

‘I can tell you about the time I hid from Mika Häkkinen, if you want,’ Nico offered. ‘If that’s…’

‘Are you kidding me?’

‘No,’ Nico said. ‘It really happened.’

How could that ever even be in question? Lewis rolled his eyes. As if there could be any other answer. ‘Well, then of course I want to know!’

And so Nico recounted that tale, and through some specific, expert questioning from Lewis (if he did say so himself), managed to elaborate on his definitely-not-boring life after all. ‘Wow,’ Lewis breathed at some point, after which Nico looked at him strangely, like he still wasn’t used to the idea someone else could find his life interesting and exciting and it should possibly, likely even, not be as endearing as it was.

‘What about you?’

‘What, me?’

‘Yes, you.’

‘But my life’s not interesting.’ He wanted to hear more anecdotes of Nico’s life, not bore Nico with his.

‘Yeah,’ Nico scoffed, which Lewis felt he should not be allowed to do, considering, ‘because everyone just reserves a seat for themselves with Ron Dennis?’

‘That is not how it happened,’ Lewis said archly.

‘Tell me then,’ Nico dared.

So he did, even though he already had not too long ago. But he made sure to tell the story properly this time, and to impress upon Nico that he had not, at any point, made a reservation with McLaren as if they were a restaurant booked full years in advance. However many times Nico insisted that was, in fact, an accurate description of the situation.

‘Imagine,’ Nico said, and Lewis hoped this finally meant he’d given up on arguing the merits of the analogy. 

Lewis waited for him to continue. ‘Yeah?’ he prompted when he realised Nico wasn’t going to.

‘What if,’ Nico finally went on, ‘when we’re both in F1’—Lewis noticed his confident “when” but forced himself not to comment on it—‘we can be in the same team?’

I bet you say that to all the boys, Lewis thought—and only barely stopped himself from saying. ‘We hardly know each other,’ he pointed out instead, and then couldn’t resist adding he thought that’d be awesome because he did quite like the idea of it, even now.

‘We have time,’ Nico said lightly, and they both laughed again. ‘And maybe… maybe you could come visit me? In Monte Carlo, I mean? Um, I mean, at some point.’

‘Does your dad not let you bring home strange boys?’ Lewis teased. Nico turned very red at that. Lewis did too, but fortunately Nico was in no position to notice because he was hiding his face in his hands.

‘I can’t believe you said that,’ Nico managed to say after an appropriate amount of time had passed and most of the mortification had gone or been viciously repressed, whichever.

‘I know,’ Lewis agreed. It was never meant to sound quite like… that, but he couldn’t believe himself, either. ‘Sorry.’

Another silence stretched. ‘Where do you suppose they are?’ Nico asked.

‘What, our dads? I don’t know, not here at least. Although I guess they’re probably not, you know, wherever they are together.’

‘No,’ Nico said, ‘I guess not, huh.’

Of course that still left the main question unanswered. But as it turned out, neither of them knew what their fathers were off doing, or where, and they both sort of got bored of the wild speculation by the time Nico suggested abduction by aliens. But that was okay, the conversation switched back to aliens in other contexts, which offered a more interesting and varied discussion anyway.

It wasn’t that much later, a few minutes maybe, that Lewis heard his dad call his name. ‘Is that your father?’ Nico asked. 

Lewis nodded. He was about to call him when his dad turned in their direction and spotted them.

‘Lewis….’ His dad sighed and turned his attention to Nico. ‘And who’s this, then?’ 

It was abundantly obvious what he meant instead was “what are you both doing up there” but Nico introduced himself anyway so maybe it was not quite that obvious unless there was prior knowledge of his dad involved. ‘Rosberg’s son?’ (Lewis thought he sounded surprised.)

Nico nodded in confirmation.

‘Lewis, come down here,’ his dad commanded. Lewis did use the trellis to climb down and tried to look appropriately contrite when he got there. ‘As for you,’ his dad continued, staring up at Nico as if the mere force of displaced parental disapproval could make him get down as well. ‘What would your father say?’

But apparently it worked, because Nico moved a step or two to the side and jumped off. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered guiltily.

‘We were just talking,’ Lewis said.

‘You can do your talking on the ground where you’re supposed to be,’ his dad grumbled.

Nico cleared his throat. ‘Um, mister Hamilton?’

‘What?’

‘Maybe we could exchange phone numbers…?’

‘Yeah,’ Lewis agreed. He didn’t know when he’d get a chance to talk to Nico again after all. ‘Can we?’

His dad agreed to it in the end, although Lewis could tell he remained unconvinced and, at least a little, taken aback that after two hours his son had acquired such a close new friend. But what he thought of the fact that it was Nico Rosberg, Lewis wasn’t sure. Nico scrawled their hotel room phone number (provided by his dad; Lewis himself had no idea what it was) on his hand with a pen his dad happened to have on hand and promised to call when he himself got back, whenever that would be.

‘What about yours?’ Lewis asked.

‘I only know my dad’s Handy,’ Nico said. Lewis had no idea what a “handy” was and neither did his dad, it looked like. Nico looked between them and frowned. He mimed a phone. 

‘Mobile,’ Lewis’ dad offered. ‘Mobile phone.’

‘Oh, mobile phone,’ Nico repeated. ‘I thought it was English, Handy. Anyway, I don’t—’ Nico paused to consider. ‘Here, give me your hand,’ he went on, reaching for his hand again. Lewis offered it and Nico gently bent down his fingers with his left hand so his palm stretched flat, the better for writing on. Lewis resolutely refused to consider if this was weird. It tickled, the path the pen traced along the palm of his hand. Nico’s hand was warm. ‘Well,’ Nico said when he was done. ‘Um.’

Lewis looked down. Nico’s handwriting was unconscionably neat. ‘Yeah.’ 

‘I guess I’ll call,’ Nico said. ‘And I guess this is yours.’ He held out the pen and Lewis took it before his dad could. ‘So….’

‘Yeah,’ Lewis said again, determined not to say anything even remotely resembling the sentiment that he was looking forward to it no matter how true that was. ‘Bye. Hey, what’s that in German?’

‘Tschüss,’ Nico said. He did a little wave. 

Lewis waved back, but only once his dad had already turned around so he wouldn’t see. ‘Tshus?’

‘No, tschüss, you’re saying it wrong: tschüss.’ But as much as Nico stretched out the vowel, Lewis couldn’t manage to make his mouth form the right shape to reproduce it.

His dad called his name impatiently. ‘I have to go,’ Lewis said.

‘Bye,’ Nico called after him.

Lewis tried as best as he could to play deaf at his dad’s questions on the way back to the car and the hotel.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, constructive criticism and corrections are all welcome.


End file.
